As we mark the 2018 international day International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation we need to accelerate efforts of raising awareness and encourage concrete actions to stop the harmful practice.

Mũkoma wa Ngũgi explores a redefinition of what ‘icon’ means in the African context, the unearthing of names that are all too often forgotten, the invisibility of female icons in our historical narratives, and the nature and role of the diaspora in our cultural, political and economic production

A sellout is someone who betrays his own principles and his followers for personal venality. Where is the evidence that South Africa's Mandela betrayed himself and deceived his countrymen for self-gain?

Nigerian businessman and impresario Paul Okoye organised one of the most impressive showcase of African and Afrobeats talent in the inaugural One Africa Music Fest at the Barclays Center Arena in Brooklyn, New York City.

We all enjoy sex but we don’t really talk about it – one reason that the topic of sextech is so emotionally charged. Artificial intelligence has boldly entered the global (and, more recently, the African) sex market, bringing with it a revolution in robotic sextech designed to provide sexual gratification that is eerily almost human.

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The Lives of Great Men a memoir by Frankie Edozien is Nigeria’s first book about LGBTQ Life. Edozien, a lecturer at the New York University captured the lives of gay men on the continent and the challenges they face. Edozien is the first Nigerian to write a nonfiction book on being a gay man.

Despite the work being done to raise awareness in society about sex workers as people worthy of respect, they are often still treated as lepers. Why is it that we only seem capable of an empathetic response once older women enter the ‘world’s oldest profession’? asks Lineo Segoete

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A sellout is someone who betrays his own principles and his followers for personal venality. Where is the evidence that South Africa's Mandela betrayed himself and deceived his countrymen for self-gain?

The definition of democracy on the continent has been restricted to holding elections. Many African leaders forget that protests and online dissent is very much part of democracy. Elections are just a part of democracy, and democracy entails a full spectrum of economic, social and political freedoms, which include citizens' rights to protest and express their voices and concern.

Funerals honour the life of the deceased. Nigeria’s elaborate and expensive funerals are rooted in history and are not unique to that country. But, says Cosmic Yoruba, the high costs and expectations surrounding these events can place a strain on the wallet and the emotions

Our liberation icons remain important – warts and all. They do not need to fade from our continental consciousness of liberation struggle history, nor from the struggles that are continually faced in contemporary times.

Zimbabweans have been celebrating Robert Mugabe's demise but the new administration could fail to bring change. The opposition and civic groups urgently need to regroup and intensify the fight for reforms in the electoral, media and security sectors to ensure holistic change.

Mũkoma wa Ngũgi explores a redefinition of what ‘icon’ means in the African context, the unearthing of names that are all too often forgotten, the invisibility of female icons in our historical narratives, and the nature and role of the diaspora in our cultural, political and economic production

UN Resident Coordinator Siddharth Chatterjee has one of those CVs that will blow you away. Sneak a peek at his Twitter bio and you will see what we are talking about. Ex Indian Special Forces. Ex Red Cross. Princeton alumnus. And a presiding don of the opinion pages at Huffington Post and Reuters. We’re sure you see what we are talking about. He’s a man worth paying attention to. We’re glad he recently spared a few minutes to sit down for an interview with Dr Diana Wangari who brings us the scoop.

Good career advice is hard to come by. Fortunately for all of us, Dr Jacqueline M. Applegate, the subject of a new interview on This Is Africa has it in spades. “In order to excel in your career, my advice is to be 100% committed to figuring out how to make your dreams a reality. Take the cards you’ve been dealt, play your hand well, and enjoy the journey!”

The Arterial Network recently launched an ambitious programme that aims to create social change through cultural action and cultural policy in four African cities. Sophia Olivia Sanan spoke to five of the organisation’s members to find out more.

The African continent is going through a political renaissance unlike any we have seen in some time. Zimbabwe recently had a coup, which was not really a coup. Kenya has two emergent leaders claiming power, South Africa's Jacob Zuma has fallen and now Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has resigned.

Zimbabwe has lost a hero with the passing of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai (65), a colossal, brave and charismatic leader who tirelessly fought for democracy. Save, as Tsvangirai was affectionately known was undoubtedly the most effective opposition leader in Zimbabwe since independence. Tsvangirai dedicated his life to fighting autocracy. We share with you 10 of his profound quotes.

Jacob Zuma has finally announced his resignation as the State President of South Africa, after weeks of negotiations and boisterous calls for his stepping down. Reactions so far show the country is not at all sad to see him leave.

South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has welcomed President Jacob Zuma's resignation as President of the country. The ANC saluted President Zuma’s “outstanding contribution” in the last nine years he served as President and his role in the party spanning over sixty years. Here is the full statement of the ANC following President Zuma’s resignation.

The National Portrait Gallery unveiled the official presidential likenesses of former US president Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama in a ceremony that was markedly different from those that went before

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma yesterday resigned as President of the country. "I have come to the decision to resign with immediate effect,” he said addressing the media following his recall by the African National Congress (ANC)’s NEC. Here is the full statement of President Zuma's letter of resignation.

Taking the poor for granted, a crisis in South Africa

By
Brent Meersman on March 13, 2017 — Government’s mishandling of the social security grant (SASSA) payment system has made the country peer into the abyss. The Concourt will hear the matter on Wednesday; the Minister best beware the Ides of March.

Carol Dlamini and Jeannette Makhanya protesting in October 2016 against deductions from social grants. The current contract with SASSA for the payment of social grants expires at the end of March. Photo: Nomfundo Xolo

Enter many a small, rural town in South Africa, and on the main road you will find the only industry in town – the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) office building.

Some 17 million human beings (usually referred to as “beneficiaries”) receive state social grants in South Africa, ranging from the R360 (US$27) per month for child support to the R1,510 (US$115) old age pension.

Most of these people, a third of the country’s population (and double the number it was in 2004), now depend for their very survival on these monthly payments. In addition, countless women and men aged 19 to 59, with little or no prospect of employment and who do not qualify for grants, depend on pooling their grandparents’ pensions and the grants of their children to keep their families going.

The Minister of Social Development has failed in her duty over the social grants payment contract, says the Black Sash. Photo: Barbara Maregele

A World Bank Report in 2014 showed that social grants halved the number of South Africans in “extreme poverty” (as defined by the bank) and reduced the Gini coefficient (which measures inequality) to 0.59, which is still extremely high, but nothing close to the astounding 0.77 it would have been without the social grant system.

The grants are paid every month to around 10 million recipients and can be accessed via ATMs on a SASSA smart card. It is a staggering accomplishment for a developing country. Without it, the country would have imploded. The social grant system, like the window of a shop, is the fragile, glass pane that keeps the social order.

All of this has been put in jeopardy by unconscionable incompetence and enough unexplained behaviour to raise suspicions of corruption.

People line up to receive their social grants at the SASSA office in Delft. Archive photo: Barbara Maregele

The history in brief is that a decentralised system of grant payments was amalgamated into a single biometric database to be administered by a private company. In 2012, Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) won the tender, one which seemed to have been authored with it in mind and excluded all competitors.

In 2014, the Constitutional Court ruled that the contract was unlawful, but fully aware that it was a matter of life and death for people and the stability of the state that payments continued, the court ruled that government had three years to rectify the situation. That deadline is at the end of this month, March 2017.

What has the Minister for Social Development Bathabile Dlamini and Zuma’s cabinet done in this three-year interim? Nothing of consequence.

Millions have been left agonising over whether they will get paid or not. And it seems, now, the only way they will be paid is through an extension of an invalid contract based on a dubious tender at the expense of good governance and with contempt for the Constitutional Court’s clear instructions.

Sassa BuildingPhoto: Masixole Feni

CPS has been operating the social grant system for the past five years was paid R2.2 billion in fees in 2016, a fifth of parent company Net1’s revenue. The company did not bid on the latest tender, and Net1’s CEO has been smugly confident since June last year that CPS would see its contract extended.

The Court had also ruled that CPS should not profit from this unlawful contract. How much profit from the nearly half a billion US dollars it has collected in revenue for administering the grants for these past years remains hidden.

Net1 also said that the fees would have to go up by between 33% and 52%. SASSA has said the (as far as we officially know) still to be negotiated contract will be inflation linked with only a 6.6% increase.

In the end, no tender was awarded. The minister and SASSA vacillated and the entire process has been marked by opacity. At various times, SASSA was itself going to take over the payment system, and then again it wasn’t. Reports on negotiations and whether a new contract had been signed by CPS and SASSA have been affirmed and then contradicted again. SASSA filed papers at the Constitutional Court then tried to withdraw them the same day. The chaos spread to the Reserve Bank and the Treasury, which cannot legally honour the contract. There was talk of “emergency procurement” under the Public Finance Management Act.

Social grant recipients queue for their grants in Parow on Wednesday. Photo: Tariro Washinyira

How much of this is corruption and how much mere incompetence has not yet been established. South Africa’s democratic experience has shown that there is sometimes a reason why an incompetent minister is appointed and then kept in place. It was certainly all too much for the director general of the department, Zane Dangor, who to his credit resigned. What relationships exist between cabinet members, certain SASSA officials and CPS or Net1 ought to be investigated.

Several civil society organisations have become involved in the litigation, many others have voiced their anger and the Constitutional Court has ordered SASSA to explain itself.

Last week, the Post Office said it could take over the contract in six months and that its involvement would be a significant saving to the country. South Africa’s moribund postal service, another crucial state entity the poor depend upon and which the government has all but allowed to collapse, could do with the business. There is serious risk, and the entity would have to be reinvigorated. It should probably have been tasked with the job in the first place when the grant system was consolidated.

The case will be heard in the Constitutional Court on Wednesday 15 March. Minister Dlamini had best beware the Ides of a March.